Re-Defining Web Reputation

In an ever evolving digital landscape it is important for businesses, and individuals to maintain a proper online reputation. Such a task is often made difficult in a world shaped by facebook pictures, user reviews and disgruntled employee’s taking to the twitter-sphere.It can become almost impossible not only to keep track of what is being said
about your company, never mind trying to respond to it all!

This is where Google’s new “Me on the Web” tool comes in play, this new tool included on your Google Dashboard, allows you to monitor what is being said about your business (or related search term), and with this google reputation management option allowing you to gather your results in nearly real time you can finally have a competitive edge in tackling the otherwise staggering task of managing your
online reputation.

“Your online identity is determined not only by what you post, but also by what others post about you — whether a mention in a blog post, a photo tag or a reply to a public status update,” Google explains, gone are the days when the information about your brand was a controlled and well crafted marketing piece, in this modern age you are an open dialogue between users everywhere with minimal control over your own identity.

Luckily however Google’s been sure to provide links to help you deal with unwanted content, and to give you further insights into how you can manage your online identity; and with a growing number of digital marketing companies
delving into the world of online reputation management you can rest assured that you can hire someone to take care of the mountain of alerts you get when it all becomes to much.

As reputation management continues to progress its important to remember a few key important factors to secure both your brand and personal data:

1. Review all facebook security settings each month, not only is it very easy to make a mistake and post something publically but with the continued revisions not only to facebook security policy but also the fundamental changes to their control panel data can quickly change.

2. Insure to keep backups of corporate social media account passwords in an offline and secure environment, also keep note of which employees have access and be sure that termination contracts include a clause disallowing their use of these accounts. 3. Set up “Me on The Web” to search for company name, key employee names, key email addresses, phone numbers, and unique keywords (such as a unique service/product name). It can also be helpful to put in variations with spelling mistakes in them as sometimes slanderous claims don’t come from the most reliable sources!

Janet McKenzie is a marketing associate for a new york based reputation management company specializing in corporate clients at http://www.synqk.com